Hardscape

“Hardscape” is what they call it now. “Landscaping” involves putting in the plants and trees and grass and all that. When they are putting in patios and walkways, they call it “hardscaping”. That is what they were doing at the end of last week. They began with the usual mud hole in the back.

They used their little Bobcat®* to dig the hole and then put the gravel and stone dust into it.

On top of the stone they put a layer of sand, and then they put the pavers on top of the sand. Here are the pavers.

The blocks in the photo are the rectangular pavers. They are 4″ wide and 6″ long and about 2″ deep. They also used some square pavers that are 4″ on each side. By using both square and rectangular pavers  they could mix them up into interesting patterns. Like this:

After a while, you have a patio.

I built one of those in that same place about 15 years ago. It took me two months to get it done. These guys were done in a day. I think it was the right decision to hire them instead of trying to do it myself.

Here is an aerial view of the patio so you can see the pattern of the blocks better.

Woah! I think I just lost lunch! I took that photo leaning out of a bedroom window. I won’t do that again.

While they were creating the patio in the back, they were also moving some natural hardscape out front. Remember way back when they were excavating, and they saved some of the boulders that came out of the hole? Well, they moved some of those boulders into their final resting place with the claw.

And here is the result:

Who needs a retaining wall? And… if you look up at the picture above this one you can see some red lines drawn on the ground. That is where our front walkway is going to go…. right down to this granite step:

which will go right next to the boulders. That step is a chunk of granite that is five feet long! That will look really nifty next to the natural boulders.

*I am not selling Bobcats. I am only…. wait a minute, do I really have to write a disclaimer for every brand name mentioned on this blog? I don’t think so. Never mind.